Homeschool Month in Review March 2023

by admin

This was a big month for us. I now officially have adult children, and it’s been a big transition for all of us.

A very big transition, one I’m still rather reeling from.

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March week 1

The big event is of course the boys turned 18!!!!!

But other things happened.

Most of my pictures for this week revolve around the boys’ birthday. But that little picture in the middle row on the left is from Game Club. The boys were quite gracious as some of the other kids had brought some silly little games, but they were willing to play them, even if they didn’t like playing them.

And the only other picture not related to their birthday is of these pancakes, which aren’t actually pancakes, they are Yemen martabaks, a thick pancake. But really, they were a story in everything going wrong, but still tasting okay. I’m not really sure just what I did wrong, but somehow these are not what the recipe is supposed to be.

But all the rest of these pictures are related to the cousin sleepover for the boys’ birthday. The boys wanted hobo stew, so we created our various different meals, and sat around the fire as they cooked. After putting the fire out, they were quite entertained by pouring all the water on it, they played Minecraft together, until they decided they were tired. I don’t know how this decision was arrived at. They all trooped into the tent with every pillow and blanket they could get ahold of and happily slept in the tent all night. We got up and took everyone to church, where the 4 year old went to Sunday School and the two older cousins “helped” with the parking team.

I had quite a bit of fun telling one of the leaders we had elementary students helping us today, he got this panicked look as if he really thought we were going to have elementary kids directing traffic. I may be a bit cavalier with rules from time to time, but I would never be THAT cavalier. He calmed down quite a bit when I explained it was my niece and nephew.

Events not pictured that I want to make sure I remember.

  • Jeff, The Artist, and I went to go see Jesus Revolution in the theaters, it was really good and I highly recommend seeing it. We spent a lot of time afterward talking about the movie, and the people involved, and how the different couples reacted to troubles.
  • We all went to go see Antman Quantumania for my Mom’s belated birthday movie, which everyone enjoyed seeing together, but there were definitely some storytelling problems with the movie.
  • And I forced the kids to sit down and give me a date for their graduation. It was like herding cats who had been given Red Bull and 3 shots of espresso. It was not fun, by the end I had a crazed look in my eyes, as I don’t enjoy these conversations either, and The Artist said “Mom, do you need me to make you tea? Here, I’ll go make you tea.” We have a date set now, and next I need to force them to get me names for the invitations. Dramatic sigh, I am NOT looking forward to it.

I have no clue what games the boys played during Game Club, for their birthday they got more Smash UP expansions and the final villain for Cthulhu Death May Die we don’t have yet.

And books read (and for those wondering how I read so much, these are short novels around 200 pages, OR novellas):

  • Pendant fro Trouble- prequel novella, you have to subscribe to the author’s newsletter to get it
  • The Lady Jewel Diviner– a gas lamp fantasy, or alternate history fantasy set in Regency England
  • The Selkie Scandal- a second prequel novella in the box set
  • The Moria Pearls
  • Royal Gone Rogue– I stayed up way too late finishing reading this for the first time
  • Royally Rearranged– then I went back and read the first book in the series, it’s a nice bit of fluff that doesn’t require much thought

Week 2

Most of my pictures are of the boys’ birthday party, so the two big group pictures are the pictures of the boys’ teams as the party started, and then them having fun obnoxiously singing happy birthday to each other.

I got business cards! I like them, but I’ll also be honest that I think I could have designed it better, just not sure about it.

The boys got more Smash Up expansions, so of course we played the game again. I played the “Pretty Girls” faction from the Japan expansion, which basically was a joke on anime tropes. I was wildly amused by it. Though it did not play well with the Friendship Ponies faction, they are too similar.

We made food from country…. I need to look up what it was, it was an interesting marinade for the steak and putting it on skewers was an instant hit.

The boys want to make sure and have hobo stew as many times as they can get away with before Batman heads off to the army, so this past Sunday found us in the backyard again cooking our dinner over the fire. Everyone was thoroughly happy AND I was quite happy for all the roasted marshmallows I got to eat.

Books read:

Games played:

Week 3

Let’s see, I had a very busy week with cooking clearly. We made Vietnamese pho and I attempted to make Tuvaluan fish. I don’t know if I’ll end up repeating any of these dishes, but everyone was fed more or less.

I had the boys try out my Feeding of the 5000 games, which both needed work to go better, so I’m in the process of revising them.

We studied some more United States geography, and the kids currently prefer the Pirate Jay videos, but unfortunately for them he only did like 4 videos.

The kids had teen hangout, Superman and I got there slightly before Batman and the Artist and his friend capture him for a game of chess, which they both enjoyed.

Books read:

  • Once Upon a Ren Faire– this was a fun book, and I now have to wait until the sequel comes out
  • Accidentally a Supervillain- not yet released
  • Eloise and the Grump Next Door– I liked this book okay but not enough I wanted to get the sequels. I probably won’t reread it because there are others in this genre I like better

Games played:

Honestly, I don’t know if I played any games, much to my chagrin.

Week 4

I made a photo collage for this week and was looking at it thinking, I know more happened this week, and then I realized I’d only included the last 3 days from 29-31. So, here is the updated collage:

The Artist came in and made fun of my picture choices because there are 3 pictures of games, and then other odd choices.

So, currently, Superman and I are the only people home on Tuesday nights. Jeff is working late, Batman is working until 11, and The Artist is working for about 3 hours. We’ve decided we’ll use that time to play a game or two that we haven’t really played recently then split up to do our own thing. It was so much fun, but it also helped us realize some games do not play as well with two players. I’ve seen that written out as a theory, each game has a sweet spot where it plays best.

We had one meal for geography this week, another thing The Artist was making fun of, “Why do you have so many pictures of food Mom?” Well you see child, that’s what most of the schoolwork I do with y’all now is, so lots of pictures of food. It’s a different picture than lots and lots of pictures of kids at computers.

But, back to the country, it was a Paraguayan beef stew, which no one was super excited by. I also didn’t make the most authentic stew, like not at all because the people home that night wouldn’t have wanted the traditional egg added to it.

We have only one more country in South America and we’re done with it! It’s weird to be seeing the end of our geography studies. Sadly we’re not getting to go as in-depth as we used to, but it’s exciting to be almost done.

The top right corner is me hanging out with all the Lorehaven people for Teach them Diligently, there weren’t as many people there as last year, which made me sad, for all the people there to sell, but I had a blast talking with the same people from before and meeting several new people. There were a few regulars from Lorehaven that I got a chance to meet in person for the first time.

We headed off to get bluebonnets pictures, and many didn’t turn out as good as I would have preferred, but it was a lot of fun. Leezard thoroughly enjoyed getting to come with us.

That bottom right picture is a hilarious picture of the boys discovering they had chosen to dress the same without knowing it. Including both wearing the same hat. This greatly amused me.

Games played:

  • Dragonrealms– this seems a little week for two players, I think it would be much better with 3/4
  • Kings of Israel – this did not work with two players because of the first player idea meaning you essentially repeat your turn twice in a row
  • Transamerica– I always forget how much I love this game

Books read:

The author put the series on sale, and since I had a few books from the series already, I of course had to get the rest while it was on sale. They’re a nice and quick read that I can finish in a few hours (they’re only like 200 pages). They’re all twists on fairy tales in a world that is aware they repeat stories and are in a fairy tale world.

So, that was April March. It was a busy month, and I don’t anticipate the upcoming months becoming any less busy.

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